Friday 27 January 2012

Doors: Push or Pull?

This may sound weird, but there are really many interesting bad designs in the world! There is a rich source of information in www.baddesigns.com. One of the designs featured was actually featured in the lecture as well. Yes, if you attended the lecture, I'm talking about the Coffee Machine.

After looking through some of the designs featured in the website, I was shocked to find out even a door could be a target for a bad design! A very simple thing could give people the wrong idea. Take a look at this picture below:

Taken from www.baddesigns.com

At one glance the door may look fine.  According to the design of the handles, one would think that the door can be pulled or pushed in both directions. However, it is not! Many people would sub-consciously pull the door given the handle as an indication, when approaching in any direction. In fact, only one side can be pulled and the other side can only be pushed. In this case, the suggested design is of course to remove the handle from the side that can only be pushed. This could even save the cost of having another handle!

More funny details can be read here: http://www.baddesigns.com/doors.html